Paper 3304

Abstract

Imperatives involving the verbs remember and forget are extremely common in natural language. Nonetheless, standard theories of imperative meaning fail to capture the essential effects of these "mnemonic imperatives." In order to explain the effects of mnemonic imperatives, it is necessary to model discourse participants' states of awareness. Mnemonic imperatives can then be straightforwardly analyzed as raising addressees' awareness of their pre-existing commitments. In this way, mnemonic imperatives join a growing body of evidence that modeling interlocutors' states of awareness and attention is essential for fully understanding discourse structure.